News Flash (Get Ready For It)

I would like to open this blog by saying that I do not give a fuck. Not one single fuck. Zero.

I don't give a fuck if you don't understand depression and see me talking to another of my friends and not you and you get all junior high pissy and unfriend me on Facebook. If you are that immature, good riddance.

Up yours with a toothpick.

Especially if you still try to contact me after that. If it were a year ago, I might oblige you, but if you prove yourself to be so unstable that you simply cannot handle my inability to text back sometimes, you are likely the last person I need around me right now. Sometimes, I can deal with some people. Then those people shift to other people. It's nothing personal.

But while we're all throwing fits about who pays attention to who and stomping our feet because we're all fucking bitches who can't take the fact that the god damned world does not revolve around us, how about we sit right down on a sandpaper dildo?

BECAUSE I.

DO NOT.

GIVE.

A SINGLE.

FUCK.

ZERO FUCKS TO GIVE.

ABSOLUTE ZERO.

NO VARIABLES.

JUST ZERO.

Aunt Poopmouth Goes To Whole Foods, And You Should Do The Same

Oh, you silly cucumbers. There is a debate that I simply must weigh in on, because I find it to be amusing if nothing else.

This started as a comment on a friend's post, and it expanded to become this giant WTF in my head about the way we perceive food safety. I'm talking specifically about natural versus obviously synthetic foods.

It was suggested, at one point, that perhaps foods that are genetically modified should be labeled “contains GMOs.” Now, let me explain something, before we get too far into this particular topic. I grew up in the land of missed opportunities, down a long road that ends in a Walmart, a Burger King, and a few houses. We had only what Walmart decided we wanted to eat. I know all about eating food that's not good for you simply because you have no other option.

I will tell everyone right now that no matter what is “fair” and “right,” food in the U.S. will never be sold with “contains GMOs” on it. Not because food here doesn't contain genetically modified elements, mind you, because it does, but because we live in the most pure example of capitalism on this end of the galaxy, and in capitalism, what is “fair” and “right” have no bearing on what actually comes about. If anything benefits anyone outside of the company's upper management, it is often coincidental. But perhaps I'm bitter. There, I said it for you.

Labeling foods that contain harmful elements has been done in cases where not every single food on earth contained that element, so that companies can still make a profit because they can offer other foods in place of the stigmatized foods. If we want the government to label GMO based foods, we have to supply a profit motive. We have to explain to them how to earn back the billions of dollars in profit that they'll lose in both labeling food as dangerous and then eventually having to change their entire production system to make food safe.

Spoiler alert: There is no way to make the profit back, so the short story is that the government says fuck you, buddy. Hope you like $4 bread if you want to eat natural.

That's fine for some people. Whole Foods is down the road. We'll pay $8 for a gallon of milk that will spoil in 48 hours and $20 for a head of lettuce. Right? Because we can use all that milk in 48 hours. We like milkshakes and cereal. Anyone who eats GMO based foods is obviously misinformed or just plain stupid. Right?

Not exactly. See, not everyone grows up in the same circumstances. Maybe you live in Carmel or Noblesville with the parents, and you can afford $4 bread and $8 milk and $20 lettuce. However, some of us don't have that luxury. The world is not always kind, as many people have discovered, especially if you start out poor. Sometimes, you grow up on the wrong side of town with your mother and your grandpa and your stupid redneck neighbors and everyone on earth parking on your lawn for the Tractor Engine Show every summer. Your main store is Family Dollar or Village Pantry or Walmart. There simply is nothing else within a four hour radius.

Keeping that in mind, let's say you move out at 18 the way you're supposed to and you start working shit jobs. Ten years later, you have rent, utilities, a car payment, car insurance, and a conga line of bill collectors marching up your urethra. You're going to school to make more money, but it just makes you more poor. Following me so far? Walmart finally gets natural foods, but the difference between natural whole wheat bread and Aunt Poopmouth's Magic Processed Bread Food Loaf is well over $3. You have $12 after bills and rent, and a grocery list of 14 carefully, painfully chosen food essentials to keep you from starving to death because you now live hours from where your family is, and even though Whole Foods is here, you can't afford to shop there and pay rent. You get processed, terrible food and koolaid because no one wants to help a near-30 year old man pay for overpriced bullshit bread. “What the hell's the matter with that guy?” someone might say. “Why doesn't he just get a god damned job like everyone else?”

Except you do have a job. You have the job that a college town reserves for someone without a degree (you're still working on it, remember?) You made that someone's sandwich for them at Subway an hour ago, and you're still in your uniform. You are the least appreciated piece of a system that feeds fat, arrogant, entitled, judgmental assholes so that they can go buy more overpriced, bullshit items on a full stomach.

The real issue, in my opinion, as a poor student with a job and bills and rent and a car payment, is that foods that will not hurt or kill me cost more than any independent, self-supporting, self-sufficient member of my generation can afford to spend. And no, that member of my generation is not a unicorn. We do exist. We're usually too busy trying not to let our finances close over our heads thanks to this wonderful world of consumerism that the past few generations so thoughtfully constructed for us, one which persists even after a total economic collapse occurs, only now they're selling us life rafts too.

Good consumers do not live on their own. Good consumers have at least 3 roommates in a small, “luxury” or “resort style” apartment, or they live at home with parents who can afford to buy something better than “Uncle Bitcheye's Famous Cardboard Chemical Cookielarks.” If you aren't a good consumer, the FDA does not give a fuck about you, and you are a boil on their ass when you don't buy meat substitutes for the recommended $4 for 4 basic, fozen veggie patties.

Another spoiler alert: there are no generic vegan foods at Walmart, Target, Meijer, or any other grocery store you can find in Indiana. I am a huge HUGE fan of vegan food, and I get cravings for meat substitutes, but they are not meant for people of my income bracket.

We aren't all dumb clucks who just don't know that we're hurting ourselves. We aren't all blind idiots, sheepling out into the sunset with a package of Sucrose Methadone slices, just so you know. If you live on your own in this economy, you are forced to make an unfair choice: eat things that will kill you later, or starve to death right now.

You can protest the lack of GMO labeling if you like. You can buy $4 bread, if you can afford it. If you don't have rich parents or at least 3 roommates, though, I suggest you learn to read labels very carefully if you want to avoid harmful substances. Above all, don't expect anything marketed in a big box store to have been created for any purpose more useful than to separate you from your money, regardless of what using said product ultimately results in. They don't care, they don't want to hear it; they're sorry about the inconvenience, and here's a coupon for another one.

The reality of the situation is that until we can create a system where upending an entire industry for consumer safety causes profit rather than loss, we are all on our own. Period.

So shut. The fuck. Up.

This Is How You Suck At Dating, You Assholes

We will sidestep another long, weeping blog about how awful everything in my life is. You can all rest assured, I won't be flipping my emo bangs all over you today. Today, I shall be discussing with you all of the things that people do wrong when they date someone.

Believe me, I'm just as guilty of some of these as the rest of you. I feel that as an experienced self relationship ruiner, it is my duty to educate the rest of you. Sort of a form of community service, I guess.

So without any further nonsense, welcome to...

THIS IS HOW YOU SUCK AT DATING, YOU ASSHOLES.

A tutorial. Or perhaps just a slight bitchslapping. It has yet to be determined.

1. There is nothing that will make someone want to punch you in the face until you're dead like seeing that your date has just updated their Facebook status with “so bored. Txt it :)” while they're sitting right across the table from you. There are rules to human conduct. If you're really having such a bad time, most people would prefer if you simply got up and left. You're not so awesome that anyone would endure that sort of humiliation just to be in your presence. Get up. Go. Find someone more exciting, and your date can find someone who's not a big dumb dickhead.
2. Your date is not a used car. Nothing is more invasive than you whipping out a dipstick and a tire gauge and telling them to bend the fuck over. A person's clothes and shoes and facial features are not to be used to determine his or her worth as a person. You cannot make a checklist and dock points for things like “can't cook” or “not a family person” or “doesn't like cats.” I'm sure you wouldn't like that to how someone views you. A test drive will be inconclusive for all but the most shallow of people. As a general rule, people are simply too complex to judge them like a contestant on American Idol.
3. You are not a god damned celebrity. There is something to be said for shutting the fuck up and listening to the other person. No one wants to date someone whose biggest accomplishment is that “I'm me.” That's simply not good enough. What do you do? If you don't actually do anything, grow a personality.
4. Do not go into a date intending to make it a one night stand and not tell the other person. People who do this are the lowest kind of person. I'm a bigger person these days, and I can actually stay this now. I've had this happen to me, and I know a lot of other people who have had it happen. People who get one night stood by surprise usually spend the next few months blaming themselves, and telling themselves that things would have been different if only they had been more fun to be with. In reality, you never had any intention of giving them a chance. My advice here is that if all you want is sex, don't be a dick. Hire a prostitute. That's what they do, and you'll be helping someone pay rent that way. Don't fuck up someone's life to get off.

Do try to keep these in mind, assholes.

Sincerely,

Santa F. Clause

How To Be The Only One At The Party

This week has been more emotional for me than I'd like to admit. I've put up this hardened shell and tried to get people to care about more for me than whether I can get married. I don't have anyone to get married to. I'm not waiting to put a ring on anyone's finger. I'm more worried about not getting the fuck beaten out of me in the street, fired from a job, or publicly humiliated because of who I am.

Now, I don't believe necessarily that NO ONE cares about these things. Maybe I shouldn't put it quite so dramatically. But what I will say is that it's very frustrating to see how many people are focusing on JUST marriage equality because that's what's up for debate. It has nothing to do with me, even though statistically speaking, it does. I feel like everyone's over in another room cheering for me, and no one knows I'm not in the room with them.

It's scary how distracted people can be from the other issues once a ray of hope begins to show through. I don't care if I can get married right now. What difference does it make whether or not I can get married if some dickhead can grind me to a pulp behind a bar because we frighten him just by being in the same room, and if local authorities take a hands-off approach because they don't want rainbow stains on their fingers, should the next election fall out of our favor? What difference does it make if we can have equal health insurance benefits to everyone else through my job if said job can still legally fire me in some states for violating the moral code of the people in upper management?

I hate to sound so down on everyone, but I am not part of the celebration, here. And it's not that I left the party, it's that the party left me without realizing it. Marriage equality does little for people who don't want to get married. It's a good step for our kind and for humans in general, but I'm starting to realize that my safety and job security (aside from being threatened merely by my own bad habits at work) will never be secured in my lifetime.

I have waited almost ten fucking years for someone to get it, for someone, ANYONE to stand up for something other than my right to marry and divorce someone. It seems to me that no one is coming back to my room, because no one realizes I'm not there, or maybe they think I left on purpose.

Well, I'm here to tell you, thanks. Really. I appreciate it, but it does nothing for me right now if I can still find myself a bloody pile in a back alley. It doesn't make me feel any better to know that I should have been able to marry one of the guys I've attempted to date over the last five years, because I doubt that any of those situations would have gotten any better with marriage.

I leave it in your hands to give a fuck about me, because I certainly give a fuck about me, but I seem to be the only one. I am seen as the party pooper when I tell people to put action behind their god damned red equal signs. I am seen as the Debbie Downer, the Negative Nancy, killing everyone's equal rights buzz with my petty demands for safety and a life worth living alone.

You've all disappointed me by how far you've missed my points in what I say and even accused me of being a bitter, self-hating person because I insist on change in all directions rather than just one at a time, one slow, bleeding-out change at a time. I'm literally going to be dead before anything gets done that makes me feel safe or okay in this world.

I am thinking of myself, yes, because someone has to. Love is not all there is in this god forsaken husk of a life that I find myself forced to grit my teeth through anymore. I have people that I love and have loved, but I want to be alive for it, god damn it.

You may very well still tell me that I am bitter, or that I am self-hating, or that I am missing the point of what you're doing or the historical significance of what's happening. That's just fine. I see that as you continuing to not listen to me.

I am standing up for me, and therefore for you, and so few of you are clear-minded enough to realize it. You have no idea how frustrating it is to be called out for wanting more than what you're fighting for. Like I'm supposed to just sit down and shut up and have my rights handed back to be cafeteria style.

I will not sit down. And you had all better get back into this room and get on the same page, or we're all going to be lost. The focus is wrong, though admirable, and the attitude toward anyone who demands anything more than what you're willing to fight for is shameful.

Nevertheless, there's little I can do besides wait and hope.

I don't actually expect anything positive to come out of this blog. It's more of a rant than anything. I think I'm done with calling anyone to action beyond what they're comfortable doing, because it really pisses on everyone's party, and I don't want that kind of reputation. I don't want to be that guy.

I appreciate all of your support, I really do. I just wish you were fighting for me as well as my love life. I'm not here to be the bad guy and shit on anyone's flowers about it, but I understand that that's the way I'm seen, here: some kind of ungrateful asshole sticking it to his own community for the sheer joy of doing so. I'm not changing my position, though. And what hurts the most is to be treated by my own friends and my own kind like I just don't understand the significance of what's happening right now. Like my level of understanding is so elementary that it has to be explained to me, when in reality, no one is listening to anything that I have to say about it. They simply hear that it differs from what the bandwagon is playing, and they assume that I'm just determined to be a bitch about everything.

It makes me want to give up to realize how few people actually listen when I talk.

Helvetica Sans Pretense

It's that time of year again, when Portland parents toss their unfortunate children into the remains of a 1985 Chevy Nova at 7AM and risk the lives of everyone within a 50 mile radius to be able to skid around the curves of drive thru lanes up and down Meridian Street.

Oddly enough, despite my track record of complaining about this every year as though it will change anything, I am not here to discuss the importance of not slamming into a school bus at 500 miles per hour in a beaten up Oldsmobile Bravada with a car full of illegitimate children in a freak snow storm.

I am here to announce some things about my writing. I can hear all your boners sprouting. Writing is such an exciting topic for non-writers, I know. Bear with me, because I promise this will be worth reading.

I have news. Since Antioch is finished now, save for editing, I have begun trying to decide on a typeface to use, as it currently rests in whatever the default is on whatever computer I happen to use (I have 4, because I am an asshole).

Now before you all crucify me for perceived future mistakes, I will let you know that Helvetica is one of my top choices, but in order to use it I will have to pay Adobe $30. Of course, this is not a bad price compared to another font I was looking at until I saw the price tag: $500 for a set of 4 font sets.

Oh, no. Now that I've revealed that I plan to pay for the ability to use a font that is literally everywhere, I expect to hear things like “Why don't you torrent it?” Or even better, from Mac owners: “My computer comes with it. Doesn't yours?” I suppose I could use someone's mac to put Antioch into PDF format, yes. I suppose I could also torrent it. First of all, though, I want to own the right to use whatever font I choose for whatever purpose I see fit without the possibility of legal action being smashed up my ass. Also, alternatives to Helvetica are either also paid (Nimbus Sans, $20), or so rough on screen that they aren't totally viable (Helios). Secondly, free versions of Helvetica are often some other font, lacking that clever little retro capital R that everyone adores.

That being said, I have also considered that clever Helvetica imposter known as Arial.

I said it, and I have no regrets.

ARIAL, you bitches. ARIAL.

Hark, I hear the small sounds of protest beginning.

Do you hear that? It's the sound of lensless glasses melting in the heat of self-important rage. It's the sound of a billion cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon upending from the force of the anger and chaos I just unleashed by saying that hated font's name. Starbucks and Joanne's just burst into ironic flames. Suddenly, Goodwill stores across the nation are flooded with acid wash jeans!

ARIAL UNICODE, I SAY! MICROSOFT SANS SERIF, EVEN! THAT VILE IMPOSTER, WITH IT'S HELVETICA “G” BUT ARIAL “R”!

Somewhere, a Toyota Prius is weeping. Somewhere, IKEA and Whole Foods have been converted to Wal-mart and Save-A-Lot. Somewhere, the only place one can get iced coffee is a McDonald's filled with screaming demon children. It's a horrible place where “Mocha” and “latte” are never the same drink, and “large” is a real size.

Oh, the humanity!

We'll all be overrun by the bad parts of the 1980s and 1990s. Full House and Matlock will be on every channel, and we'll all wake up to find that we've been sporting mullets for years.

All because I used Arial.

A bit dramatic, sure, but that's the culture we live in.

I may do it just to watch the world destroy itself, humanity withering to little more than nomadic tribes warring and murdering over the last MacBook on Earth, scrambling for black rimmed glasses and hording typewriters in the corners of ruined hotel rooms.

We all think we're writers, don't we? I certainly think I am.

The truth is, the more people flip out about what font a writer publishes in, the more ridiculous the whole affair becomes. I mean, there are some obvious no-nos. Publishing a research paper in Comic Sans, for instance. Using Brush Script for a road sign.

I have seen some silly slanderfests over the use of Arial as opposed to Helvetica. While the more educated of us may consider Arialists to be “amateurish” and “careless” in their font choices, I ask them to bear this in mind: the font is secondary to the story, providing it isn't something distracting and annoying. Arial is only distracting to people who buy their food at Whole Foods and their clothes at Goodwill. The general public will not know the difference.

Granted, I may end up choosing Helvetica because it is one of the most readable fonts, and can be easily used for large print text because of this, but Arial is equally suited for this, and it's technically free. No licenses to buy in order to use Arial.

One can fuss about fonts used, or one can write a story that transcends fonts. Some people can do both, but most people just criticize other people's font choices.

I suppose that's the condition of my generation, and the next generation that is starting to emerge in our shit-filled wake: that form is much more important that function. It's evident in the sheer number of horrifically written fiction being sold, even by big publishing houses. (Our generation is also the one that made using an apostrophe and an “s” to make something plural the norm, which throws me into a similar homocidal PBR rage every time I see it on a billboard or on TV. Bad grammar is bad grammar, no matter how accepted it is.)

Fellow indie authors, we need to put down our god damned messenger bags and write something that can dispell this image, because I'm afraid that I'm decades away from writing anything life-altering. I have readers, sure, and I've actually enjoyed a lot of success when compared to the lame, weak amount of marketing I've actually done, but some of us are just dellusional, writing bullshit that no one will ever relate to or be moved by just so we can slam it into a respectable font.

We are the generation of pretty fonts, and they aren't even ours. Our parents and grandparents made them. We've made some interesting mutations, but we've neglected to do the one thing that previous generations DID do, which is to write something groundbreaking. We need to write something that will be anthologized for decades after our death.

The font should be just as transparent as the writing style. Readers don't ordinarily pick up a book to admire the font or be awed by a clever passage or two, they want substance. They want to be entertained and educated.

This isn't necessarily a dig at typographers, because typography is the foundation of writing. Typographic art also happens to be my favorite kind of art, and I plan to have a house filled with it one day. I am targeting the hordes of unmotivated, overeducated fools who think that making a pretty font based on Helvetica makes one a writer.

The definition of writer is clearly different depending on the person. I think we've lost sight of what the focus ought to be if you call yourself a writer. The focus, as I see it, is expression first. Second, to make reading the norm again, and to make it accessible to everyone. The focus next is to trim the fat. Make every word do something. Nothing turns modern readers off more than 7 pages of no action. I suppose this can be attributed to the culture of TV saturation, but that's all the more reason to press on and adapt. Great art can be created with words, if you only get the dildo of pretense out of your ass. Slapping a bullshit book into a cool font does not make it a better book. It makes it a décor piece. It makes it a bookshelf filler. Typefaces, as they apply to fiction, are wallpaper. Wallpapering a poorly designed house does not make it a better house.

Be it by the label of typographer, writer, painter, mixed media, architect or anything else relating to art, there is nothing more offensive than someone who goes by the title of “artist” but produces no art, they merely criticize the art of others. I'm not saying that non-artists aren't welcome critics and a resource of valuable feedback, but to pretend to be one of us just so your blows will hit harder is social suicide, and if and when the current hipster culture is replaced by whatever is next, you will be obsolete.

So, when the world ends because I put a piece of writing into Arial or Helvetica, don't be sad. I will have created something that will outlive me in one form or another. That's what actually matters.

Sequels, Though Feared, Are Sometimes Necessary

As anyone who follows my social media posts knows, it has been quite some time since I've done any serious writing. It's been almost four months, to be exact. In the career of a writer, that's an eternity, and long enough to make one feel out of practice and out of touch with one's own work.

I find myself, however, to be in a position where I am compelled to write again.

The problem I've faced, which has prevented me from writing for a further three weeks, is that I have no idea where to start. This is the first time in my entire writing career when I've looked at a blank screen and had no idea what to fill it with.

There have been ideas. I've had it in my head for years now to write a horror novel, but I can't make myself do it yet. Most recently, it came to me to try to write a novel set in the future involving spousal abuse, putting a dark reality into a fantastic world and creating unusual. I cannot make myself write that, either.

However, today I was overcome by an idea that I had at one time thought was the most stupid idea I had ever heard. It occurred to me that Warren and Aaron's story may not be finished. So much is yet to be explained and so many stories left to be told that perhaps Antioch is only the beginning.

Yes, I am talking about another Antioch. The dreaded sequel. The whole dreaded series, perhaps. Book after book of Warren and Aaron's relationship troubles. Obviously, though, we won't be picking up after the events of Antioch, but rather before them. The question is, how far before them?

Now before you kill me with a spike, I want you to consider this: Just about every idea I've come up with to try to avoid doing this could have been summed up as “Antioch in X,” where X represents some variable. Antioch in space, Antioch with female main characters, Antioch as a horror novel, etc.

It all leads in the direction that points toward another Antioch.

I sent texts to a few people that I knew had read Antioch and became invested in the characters, reaching out to them about the possibility of a sequel. I expected to be destroyed, maimed, perhaps even shunned for considering the idea so early in my career.

This was not the case.

So many people have read this book that it blows my mind. Yes, I wrote it hoping to get readers, but the response has been enormous and ongoing. The Antioch site continues to get steady traffic with no intervention from me. The post of Antioch on Authonomy continues to generate positive reviews by other authors with no inquiry to read their own novels, which is rare on that site. With no help from me, Antioch remains above the 2,000 rank in a sea of almost 10,000 unpublished novels on that site, having made it to 55 when I was an active user.

I am not bragging. I am thanking you. Everyone who read and supported my novel, and those who continue to read and support it. I am thanking you from the lonely wastes of depressionland. Your comments and your feedback mean something. I get through the day sometimes by reading all the comments and looking at the stats and knowing that something that I wrote meant something to so many people. I know it, and it the most surreal thing on earth to think that if I had just kept pushing, I may have made it further than I did, but to know how far I came. I had no idea that something that I wrote would get such a response.

Aaron Dunn is not so much a character, but a mirror by which I see myself. Broken, tired, sometimes unwilling to go on, I see myself in him and it hurts and it's freedom and it's indescribable to know that in parts of the world as far removed from my tiny universe as Germany and Russia, he's a mirror for others as well.

So yes, I will be writing another Antioch. I won't go into a lot of detail, but you can rest assured that it will not be called Antioch 2 or Antioch 2: Insert Secondary Title. I'd like to think that I'm more clever than that.

So to everyone who reached out to me, wanting to know how Aaron met Warren, how he became such a fucked up human being and what makes him keep going, I want to thank you and tell you that you are not alone.

I, too, want to know. Because in knowing these things, I will know myself.

Expect this to come to fruition within the month. It will be live, just like the original. I expect you all to be there, because this is what is supposed to happen.

After this, who knows? Maybe I'll write my short stories or another novel, or maybe I'll stop writing altogether if I'm feeling dramatic.

But for now, the story will continue, in some form.

Aaron's and my own.

Be there.

Guess How Many Fucks I Give?

After months of avoiding the internet (both because I did not have it at home anymore, and because I no longer felt a part of my own online presence), I have decided that I am ready to begin a small comeback as an online writer.

I have realized that I have more readers than I thought, and though I am not anywhere near an ideal understanding of the craft of writing, I believe that after all of the hard work that I've invested in learning it, I have something to give the world.

All of my detractors are not so because of my writing, but because of my unfortunate need to voice my opinion, which I also am almost never convinced is wrong. So far, I haven't often been wrong. That's another matter, though. I'll get into that in a minute.

I enter back into this agreement with three understandings in mind, regardless of whether or not anyone else sees fit to adhere to or agree with them.

1. I am a writer. That is the only label I will use on purpose and at all times to describe myself professionally. I am not a gay writer, or a white writer, or a male writer. Those things are merely the coincidental and sometimes unfortunate circumstances under which I was born. Labels for the sake of labels have no place in writing in my opinion. If you are a good enough writer, no one cares about your gender, sex, gender preference, race, religion or any other label that we use to separate ourselves from one another in daily life. One leaves those things at the door when sitting down to write, or the writing becomes secondary to your personal identity, which no one cares about and no one picked up your book hoping to know.
2. In the past years and especially the past months, I have become immune to the opinions of others. We would all do well to adopt this outlook, because more harm comes from what credit we give to the opinions of others than from anything we could do to ourselves. It affects what we do with our lives and how we live. I, for one, will no longer be taking advice about my string of bad life choices from someone who has made just as many bad choices just because he or she deems it necessary to voice an opinion I could just as easily find on the web if I cared enough to go looking for it. There are people in this life who are convinced that they are the center of some private revolving little universe, made up of you and everyone else in orbit around them. Avoid them.
3. I am in a bad place. I may be here for a while. I am in a place where I realize every day that I could have been something by now. I think: Why try to do anything anymore? So know that if I post something, it's a big deal. It means that I was able to get online and function as a marketer for a little bit. That's something I once took for granted, and everyone at one time likely wished that I would stop doing.

That being said, however incoherent and uninteresting all of that may have been, I will follow it with more dry news.

I am writing a Christmas themed story for a contest.

Why am I supporting Christmas?

Because I can. So fuck off. Atheism does not outlaw recognition of holidays, merely the religious aspects of them.

And I want to write a Christmas story. So I will. And when I win, I will get money.

Then, I'm going to write some stories for Writer's Digest's contests. And when I win those, I will prove that I can live on writing. Barely, but it can be done. It may be a few years before I can actually accomplish it, but believe me when I tell you that it will happen.

I'm sure you're all rioting because this isn't funny.

Level of care: 0.

However, I do have some fucks to give. I always have fucks to give. This is me giving a fuck. You ought to shut the fuck up and let me give a fuck.

See? I actually gave you a total of 6 fucks, including this one.

Life is about what you decide to do with it.

I am choosing new paths, albeit in the dark and without much assistance aside from the parents kindly letting me live in their house for a bit.

But what does that say about people who still have light and choose to do nothing?

I envy those people.

They are so determined to identify as a victim that they see and refuse the exit.

It must be nice.

And no, the exit I'm talking about is not offing oneself. That's not so much an exit as a red button. No one actually knows what it does, but some people push it.

I'm not that far gone yet.

So if you want something funny, go read a Garfield strip.

I am not the funny faggot today.

I am officially depressed. I am intermittently unable to get myself to reply to text messages from friends. I haven't written anything in months.

Maybe you understand. Maybe you get it.

I wouldn't know.

I just have trouble giving a fuck.

I can do what I'm asked to do around the parents' house, I can make it through work, and I can somehow lose time in between.

The root cause of all of this likely has something to do with my sudden, self-induced uprooting. Likely, though, it has just as much to do with leaving a life that I knew as comfortable for the strange and faintly alien world of my childhood.

I suppose I'll feel better when I'm back in Muncie.

In the mean time, I've got school to attend to, and a reputation as an artist to uphold. Somehow, also, I've got to figure out who the fuck I am.

Most importantly, I have to decide how much of a fuck I actually give about everything.

That's all.